What's your favorite line from a Steely Dan song?

Don't make me do it without the fez on...

 

This is the day of the expanding man

 

got a case of dynamite, I can hold out here all night

 

All good but I'm going with:

"You can tell 'em tonight that Santa Monica has definitely been set on fire."

Followed closely by:

"What we gonna give you tonight, it'll be down to the nitty gritty."

 

NEVER GONNA DO IT WITHOUT MY FEZ ON

 

He gonna give ya somethin’ that Santa Mockida never had!

If it good to ya, it got to be good fa ya!

 

Kid Charlemagne, the whole thing....

 

I've used this for years with my kids and grandkids when they won't try something new.

 

Both from Glamour Profession:

6: 05, outside the stadium
Special delivery for Hoops McCann
Brut and charisma poured from the shadow where he stood
Looking good, he's a crowd-pleasing man

and

Jive Miguel, he's in from Bogota
Meet me at midnight at Mr. Chow's
Szechuan dumplings
Now that the deal has been done

 

Here at the western world


Ruthy will give you the silver key
To open the red door
Lay down your jackson and you will see
The sweetness you’ve been crying

 

"do you have a dark spot on your PAST". makes a whole lot more sense doesn't it?

 

I have never met Napoleon but I plan to find the time

 

We could stay inside and play games I don’t know.

 

Katy tried I was halfway crucified
I was on the other side of no tomorrow
You walked in and my life began again
Just when I'd spent the last piaster I could borrow

 

Even Cathy Berberian knows there's one roulade she can't sing

 

She reached out for my hand
While I watched myself lurch across the room
And I almost got there

 

: )

 

Steely Dan lyrics are among my all time favorites, so I'm loving this thread! so many great lyrics.

My current favorite is Your Gold Teeth II, and especially:

Throw out your gold teeth and see how they roll
The answer they reveal, life is unreal

 

When my dad was introducing me to Steely Dan, I always heard "pants" and wondered if the song was about a dry cleaner. I know what the lyric is now, but I wouldn't put it past them to write a song about a laundry...

 

"My friends say no don't
go for that cotton candy
son you're playing with fire
the kid will live and learn
as he watches his bridges burn
from the point of no return"

"We know you're used to 16 or more, sorry we only have 8"

and an entry with an asterisk:

"In the good old bad part of this college town
Men in grey limousines will drive you down
You take their money just like you take mine
Where does it get you in that thin blue line"

 

Everyone stopped and stared
At your technicolor Motorhome

How many singers and turn a phrase like that and keep it within the meter

 

I stepped up on the platform, the man gave me the news.
He said, "You must be joking son; where did you get those shoes?
Where did you get those shoes?"

 

Memory rush over me, Now I stare into the sun

There's several one liners Becker and Fagen have written over time, but that line is very much "Haiku-like" in its simplicity.

A few others:

Yes Jack, I gave it back, the ring I could not own

Double Helix in the sky tonight, break out the hardware, let's do it right

 

Cousin Dupree...

Now I've come back home to plan my next move
From the comfort of my Aunt Faye's couch
When I see my little cousin Janine walk in
Well, all I could say was, "Ouch"

 

And when Abu jams a clip in the miniglock,
Up on the catwalk inside the warehouse,
You whip a knife from the top of your go-go boot,
With just a flash of spectacular thigh.